Welcome Home
by Rhianwen
Summary: It was a big step, but they're starting to adjust to each other. Unashamed fluff of the SyndromeMirage variety. Takes place some time before the movie.


Welcome Home

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Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, and I'm pretty sure that, like every other character I've ever picked on by insistently writing about them, they don't like me.

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Summary: It was a big step, but they're starting to adjust to each other. Unashamed fluff of the Syndrome/Mirage variety. Takes place some time before the movie.

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It's not as difficult as she imagined, adjusting to full-time life on this beautiful, idyllic, and utterly bizarre island of his. Of course there are all the little things that add up to the biggest differences, like dozens of passwords to remember, and the rarity of that blessed state known as _complete privacy_, and the necessity of carrying a weapon at all times – which, really, is one of her favourites – and the thundering explosions from every which way at unexpected moments.

Then there are the bigger things. Like happily handing him her name and identity and past, and learning not to wonder, bewildered,_ who's he talking to? w_henever he calls for _Mirage_. Like no place to escape and forget that murder is still murder, even if the intention is (officially) working toward equality; and the arrival at the final, unavoidable decision to stop playing and flattering, and _really_ support him.

Not much has changed; she's just finished the job of sealing her own fate. Which, really, had to happen sooner or later.

But there are always things to make crazy hours and endless travel and occasional guilt-fueled panic attacks alone at three in the morning, worth it. Like a cocky little grin that makes it difficult not to blush like she was still that arrogant twenty-three-year old girl-woman. Or the sight of an officer shooting out the window in a beam of blue light after a particularly crude, ill-thought-out comment about _women who use their figures instead of their brains to get anywhere in life_ and _men who say they're smart, but still think with the wrong head._

None of this is specifically running through her mind as light floods the room from the sleek, austere fixtures overhead halfway through her carefully silent trip across the room, because she's spent a lot of years training herself not to think the wrong thing at the wrong time, and there's really no _right _time . No amount of _guilt_ or _doubt_ is going to change her mind now, so what could possibly come of wasting time and energy on it?

And anyway, there are more important things to focus on; like his arms winding around her waist from behind and pulling her irresistibly back against him; fingers working quickly at the loose knot holding her robe closed; his cheerful, flippant greeting against her hair: "Welcome home, sweetheart."

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It's not as difficult as he imagined, adjusting to having a _woman_ around all the time. Sure, she's been here almost constantly for ages now, and it's more of a formality than anything to move her here and put her on record as an employee. And sure, she's always been good at making him wonder if she had some kind of selective amnesia whenever he sent her a wink or a grin, or touched her shoulder or her knee lightly during the day's work, and she responded with a smile as polite, respectful, and completely impersonal as if she hadn't been purring contentedly and exhaustedly against his shoulder about nine and a half hours ago.

And yeah, she'd usually end up staying the night at least every third time he called her in to help with something, so when he finds her waiting for him every night in some kind of red or black or white scrap of lace, it's not such a big difference.

It's not as _annoying_ as he imagined, either, when the little bits and pieces that a young man accustomed to no one to tell him otherwise inevitably leaves scattered all over the floor somehow find their way to safe places because she abhors untidiness and it's no use asking _him_ to pick them up.

It _is_ kind of annoying, hearing one of the personnel mutter behind his back that _Mr. Syndrome's little chickie is distracting him again_, but that's why geeks rule the world – he only has to hear it once, before the offender somehow ends up flying out a window or into a moving blade. And yeah, it was a hell of a lot of work, surreptitiously removing all record of her from every goddamn database in the country, just so that she could look like a kid who didn't bother studying for a test and wished she had when he called for her, using the pretty, fanciful name that hit him at three in the morning and still made perfect sense the next morning.

Just as well that she'd loved it, despite pretended indifference, because it wouldn't have mattered either way.

None of this really crosses his mind, because he doesn't bother putting thoughts into words without a good reason – she's the one who's psychotic about organization, not him.

And even if he did bother thinking about this crap, he wouldn't be doing it now, because he's been away for three weeks, two of which she's spent getting _settled in_, and now he can hear soft footsteps just outside the door, can barely make out a lithe, graceful shape sneaking across the darkened room, and he makes a pact with himself to give them both a _big_ treat if he can scare her, make her yelp.

He grins against her hair as she relaxes into his arms and her fingers thread through his.

"Welcome home, sweetheart."

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End Notes: Does it signal that there's something very wrong with me, that I find these two so irresistibly cute together? Anyway, I know it was unforgivably bad, but I'm still trying to find my footing with their characterizations. The next one should be better. And hopefully funny. Intentionally funny, I mean. :)


End file.
